19 June 2014 room 903
Orit Zaslavsky, New York University and Israel Institute of Technology
Thinking with and through Examples
In my talk I will discuss the roles that examples play (or could play) in mathematical thinking, learning, and teaching. I draw mainly on research I've been doing for over a decade that addresses this broad topic from several perspectives. In terms of learning - I look at mathematical concepts (e.g., irrational number, periodic function) and meta-concepts (e.g., definition) and examine the way interacting with examples may enhance understanding of these concepts. In terms of mathematical thinking, I look at mathematical proof and proving as a site for developing mathematical thinking (here I draw on my experience in designing and implementing an undergraduate course on Mathematical Proof and Proving (MPP), on my current work with Eric Knuth and Amy Ellis on the roles of examples in learning to prove, and my previous work with Uri Leron on generic proving, and with Orly Buchbinder on the roles of examples in determining the validity of mathematical statements). In terms of teaching, I try to unpack pedagogical considerations that teachers encounter when constructing or selecting instructional examples (this work I have done with Iris Zodik), and try to characterize this kind of knowledge for teaching mathematics that appears to be crafted through experience.
12 June 2014 room 915 - pls note change of room
Dave Pratt and Melissa Rodd
'Thinking, fast and slow' - a discussion of some of the ideas from Daniel Kahneman's book and implications for mathematics education.
link: pdf of Daniel Kahneman (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4299-6935-2.
5 June 2014 room 915
Maths education team meeting
Staffing for next acdemic year
29 May 2014 room 728
Leo Rogers, Oxford University
Historical Epistemology: what we learn about ‘learning’ from the History of Mathematics
Historical Epistemology investigates the resources and conditions pertaining in cultures that give rise to particular ways in which ideas have been formed in the past, and what we may gather from our interpretations that provide information that enables us to think differently about some of our current scientific assumptions. The seminar will offer some contexts and activities from the past that have been identified as ‘mathematical’, and discuss their relevance for the modern classroom. I would like to begin with some examples of contexts and objects to think about before getting on to more ‘philosophical’ arguments about perception, visualisation, analogy and certainty of knowledge. Here are the powerpoint slides.
22 May 2014 room 736 - pls note change of room
Geoff Kent
Analytical Approaches to the Social: Networking Cognitive and Critical theories to interpret data from the REALMS (Raising Expectations and Achievement Levels for all Mathematics Students) research project
Debate about the interplay between social and individual aspects of mathematics teaching and learning remains at the cutting edge of theoretical understanding of mathematics education research. In trying to make sense of the insights of these divergent perspectives I ask: How is it that social reality exists? What are the merits and limitations of considering the students in our classrooms as only collections of individual minds, in contrast with perspectives that posit the primacy of the social in determining the identity of mathematics learners? Can each be accorded its relative legitimacy in a rigorous and rational manner? Recent developments in analytical social theory may have the potential to address this issue productively. This paper covers the conflict between social-constructivist and socio-cultural perspectives in the literature and the critical role of inter-subjectivity in communicating mathematics through interaction. The paper concludes by drawing on Searle‟s notion of collective intentionality to address the networking and complementary use of theories based in cognitive science and critical theory and the interplay of the individual and social in school mathematics.
15 May 2014 room 903 - pls note change of room
Cathy Smith & Candia Morgan
The comparative curriculum project.
We are going to talk informally about the NCEE curriculum project for which we have just finished the first phase. The project is a review of curriculum documents in 11 "high-performing jurisdictions" and we have looked at the secondary mathematics as part of this ( with c. 1 day per country). It is necessarily descriptive rather than analytic but it has been interesting both in its outcomes and in its methods. The 11 jurisdictions are Japan, China Shanghai and Hong Kong, Florida, Massachusetts, Australia New South Wales and Queensland, Singapore, Finland, Canada Alberta and Ontario.
and
Anneli Dyrvold, Erasmus exchange academic visitor from Umea University, Sweden
Aspects of multisemiotics in PISA mathematics and the Swedish national tests in mathematics
Abstract: I will present a study aiming at analysing if there are any relations between mulitsemiotic features of mathematics tasks and solution frequency or demand of reading ability of the tasks. By multisemiotic features I mean how natural language, mathematical notation and different types of images is used in the task text and if there is a need to read information from several sources together to interpret the task correctly.
8 May 2014 room 803
Steve Lerman, Loughborough University, with Michal Ayalon
On: functions in secondary school mathematics This talk, based on our on-going study, examines expressions of covariational reasoning by 11 to 18 year old English students responding to a survey consisting of function tasks developed in collaboration with their teachers. It is part of a larger project which compares UK and Israeli students, who learn formally about functions at different ages. In this study, the survey was given to 10 students from each of UK years 7–13, a total of 70 students. An iterative and comparative analysis process identified capabilities as well as difficulties of students and suggested conjectures concerning links between the affordances of the tasks and the curriculum, and students' responses. The talk focuses on five of the tasks and highlights the importance of connections between informal, schooled and formal aspects of covariation in adolescent learning.1
May 2014 room 803
Gregor Lomas, Faculty of Education, University of Auckland
Numeracy in New Zealand: Looking back, what's left and possible legacies
An exploration of the NZ Numeracy Development Projects (NDP) for 5 year olds to 14/15 year olds in terms of:
- goals; development and evolution; the three main underpinning features; associated pedagogy and classroom practice(s) – teaching and assessment, and resources.
- the extent to which NDP achievements in primary and secondary schools did and did not meet NDP goals?
- how sustainable are the NDP achievements?
- what sort of things are needed to sustain and/or further improve on them?
- unintended consequences such as changes in teacher education mathematics education programmes and flow on effects, and the funding and promotion of research based on teacher education departments at universities around the country.
24th April 2014
Kate Mackrell
Meaning in mathematics education: social construction or initiation into the space of reasons?
Abstract: In the mathematics education literature, learners' encounters with meaning are almost always described in terms of "social construction". I will unpick what this meant in the context in which it arose and suggest ways in which this impacts current theory and practice. I will then consider the potential for reframing mathematics education in terms of initiation into the space of reasons.
10 April 2014 room 901
Nicola Bretscher
Developing a measure of mathematical knowledge for teaching circle theorems using technology
This seminar presents the circle theorem case list as a potential tool for measuring mathematical knowledge for teaching circle theorems using technology,
as part of a broader research study aiming to develop a deeper understanding of how and why mathematics teachers use technology in their classroom practice. The development of a measure of mathematical knowledge for teaching circle theorems using technology necessarily exists in a dialectic relationship with the conceptualisation of that knowledge. Thus the circle theorem case list was developed in tandem with a conceptualisation of mathematical knowledge for teaching circle theorems using technology, based on a qualitative analysis of data from interviews with four case study teachers structured around a
specially-designed GeoGebra file. The complexity of this conceptualisation is justified post-hoc by the analysis of interview data using the Knowledge
Quartet. In addition, an indication is provided of how this conceptualisation might be operationalised as a test item. Please do have a go at exploring
this geogebra file on circle theorems, especially diagram 1 – the seminar will make much more sense if you have.
3 April 2014
Discussion of paper proposed by Eirini Geraniou: link to paper Gurtner, J. (1992). Between Logo and Mathematics: A Road of Tunnels and Bridges. In Hoyles, C. and Noss, R. (eds.), Learning Mathematics and Logo, The MIT press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp.247-268.
20 March 2014 room 915
Jeff Evans, Middlesex University
Reading the PIAAC Results: what to look out for, and what you may find
I want to consider what the PIAAC results might be able to tell us, and how they might be useful to mathematics education and adults’ mathematics education / numeracy researchers. I will begin by sketching a well-established set of criteria for validity in non-experimental research (Evans, 1983, based on Campbell & Stanley’s work, as elaborated by many others). I will then apply these to the reading of international surveys like PISA and PIAAC (Project for International Assessment of Adult Competencies, aka Survey of Adult Skills), and to the recent results from the latter, which appeared in October 2013. Tsatsaroni, A.& Evans, J. (2013), 'Adult Numeracy and the Totally Pedagogies Society: PIAAC and other international surveys in the context of global educational policy', in Educational Studies in Mathematics, Special Issue on Social Theory in Mathematics Education (in press).
13 March 2014 room 803 Anne Watson, Oxford University
Beyond Fragments.
Anne Watson will talk about her experience going back into school to teach mathematics to a class of year 7 students after 19 years away, and how the
Pupil Premium made this extremely difficult – who won and who lost out?
6 March 2014 room 803
Kicki Skog, Erasmus exchange academic visitor from Stockholm
Immigrant Primary Mathematics Teacher Students’ Subject Positioning
In my work as teacher educator I have met many students from different cultures. They are not to be seen as a homogenous group, however there are questions they raise that only relate to their background. The issue of having another mother tongue is one of the most prevalent factors that affect them during teacher education. My PhD project focuses on becoming mathematics teachers’ subject positionings in discourses available in the educational contexts. I take a socio-political theoretical approach in order to understand how power-relations may affect the students’ discursive positionings. What I want to foreground in this presentation is implications of immigrant students’ subject positionings in discourses of language and mathematics. I have found that there is a need to take into account how discourses of language and mathematics work within the educational programme. I would like to invite you to discuss how to meet becoming mathematics teachers’ different needs without omitting the core of mathematics education.
27 February 2014 room 803
Research students' presentations:
Carla Finesilver Key representation types for students struggling with multiplicative thinking.
The move from understanding and working with additive structures to multiplicative structures requires a significant change in thinking. This paper explores the visuospatial representations of multiplicative structures created during individual numeracy tuition by a group of pupils working on simple multiplication-and division-based tasks. The pupils were all in KS3 or KS4 in mainstream secondary schools, where they were considered very low-attaining (all performing at NC Level 3 or below on most recent assessment). They had demonstrated a secure conceptual understanding of addition and subtraction, but not multiplication or division, and made considerable use of counting-based strategies to deal with arithmetical tasks of all kinds. Four interlinked representation types are discussed: unit containers, unit arrays, array-container blends, and number containers. These are used to investigate the roles of visuospatial representation in the pupils’ developing multiplicative thinking, and the relationship between representational and arithmetical strategies in natural number division tasks.
Norul Huda An investigation of mathematics student teachers’recontextualisation of messages about classroom control during the teaching practicum in the Malaysian context
It is observed that all six mathematics student teachers who participated in my study about student teachers’ recontextualisation (Bernstein, 1990) faced many obstacles regarding handling students’misbehaviour in the classroom. However, the student teachers are not left alone in facing this difficulty where mentors, supervisors and even University courses support student teachers by conveying messages about classroom control to them. My study focuses on deriving the similarities and differences of messages from the University and the School based on Bernstein’s discussion of possible resistance between the Field of Recontextualisation and the Field of Reproduction. The student teachers’ recontextualisation of these various messages is then studied. In my presentation, I will discuss various messages about classroom control conveyed to student teachers, the ways in which student teachers recontextualise the messages, and possible implications for mathematics student teachers development during the practicum.
Bernstein, B. (1990). The structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. Volume IV: Class, Codes and Control. (Vol. 4). London: Routledge.
19th February 2014, room 901
Nathalie Sinclair & David Pimm, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Expanding finger gnosis with TouchCounts.
How might multi-touchscreen environments change what it means to "know your fingers", a knowing that cognitive scientists have identified as a key
pre-requisite to the development of number sense. The session will include practical work with the TouchCounts software, please contact Nathalie Sinclair if you'd like a trial version of the software for your iPad.
13 February 2014 room 803
Mathematics education team meeting. Sharing information about projects: what are you working on or planning beyond your core teaching? The aim is to think about developing as a team and current and future priorities.
30 January 2014 room 803
Discussion of Esther Levenson's paper 'Tasks that may occasion mathematical creativity: teachers' choices' J Math Teacher Educ (2013) 16:269–291; the case studies include both primary and secondary teachers.
23 January 2014 room 911; N.B. This meeting will be from 1pm-2pm.
Cathy Smith and colleagues
Workshop on supervising Masters dissertations and reports.
16 January 2014 room 803
Pete Wright
Initial findings from EdD research project 'Teaching maths for social justice: translating theory into classroom practice' link to BCME 2014 draft paper.
9 January 2014 room 908
Doctoral School application procedures:
how to make it easier for prospective students and supervisors in maths education. Discussion. And any other business.
12 December 2013 in 908
Bring a starter! - mathematical and edible (mince pies too!)
Informal sharing of tasks 'that have worked for us' (a la ATM and from the Rowland and Zazkis paper that was discussed on 21 Nov 2013).
5 December 2013 in 803
Dave Pratt and Jan Derry
Towards an inferentialist-informed mathematics curriculum for adults working at Level 2.
Dave will present progress on developing a MOOC for adults who have not (yet) obtained GCSE mathematics and who need a fresh approach to the study of mathematics at that level. The design of the MOOC will be to some extent influenced by constructionist and inferentialist principles. Jan will explain inferentialism and its implications for education more widely.
28 November 2013 in 803
Elena Kokkoli: PhD research report: Secondary Mathematics Teachers during Educational Change, A case study in the Cypriot Educational Context.
&
Rebecca Nelson:How newly appointed subject leaders in mathematics in comprehensive secondary schools in England experience their first year in post.
Abstract. My research focus is on how newly appointed subject leaders in mathematics in comprehensive secondary schools in England experience their first year in post. My intention is to provide a narrative account of the challenges and successes of taking up this role, from the perspective of the subject leader. Through case studies of X subject leaders who take up a new post in September 2014, I aim, with the help of my subjects, to provide an interpretation which will discuss the wider policy context in which mathematics is taught, the institutional structures and relationships within which the role is played out and the significance of the biographical histories of the subject leaders. I hope that my study will be of help to current and future subject leaders, to their line managers in schools and to external organisations that prepare or support new subject leaders in providing insights and food for further discussion and reflection.
21 November 2013 in 803
Discussion of Tim Rowland & Rina Zazkis (2013) Contingency in the Mathematics Classroom:
Opportunities Taken and Opportunities Missed, Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 13:2, 137-153
14 November 2013 in 915
Prof. Götz Krummheuer - Goethe University Frankfurt am Main
CHANGING MATHEMATICAL DOMAINS IN SITUATIONS OF PLAY AND EXPLORATION – A GENUINE MATHEMATICAL ACTIVITY OF CHILDREN AT PRESCHOOL AND KINDERGARTEN AGE?
My presentation deals with the shifts between mathematical domains when preschool and/or kindergarten children are cooperatively interacting in mathematical play and exploration situations. This topic is one research interest in the general endeavor of developing a theory of mathematical thinking in the early years. With regard to the development of mathematical thinking, the hypothesis is stated that this switching between mathematical domains is to be taken as a positive developmental path. In view of this research, the increasing orientation in the discourse in education towards the acquisition of pre-defined domain specific competences is seen critically.
Orit Zaslavsky, New York University and Israel Institute of Technology
Thinking with and through Examples
In my talk I will discuss the roles that examples play (or could play) in mathematical thinking, learning, and teaching. I draw mainly on research I've been doing for over a decade that addresses this broad topic from several perspectives. In terms of learning - I look at mathematical concepts (e.g., irrational number, periodic function) and meta-concepts (e.g., definition) and examine the way interacting with examples may enhance understanding of these concepts. In terms of mathematical thinking, I look at mathematical proof and proving as a site for developing mathematical thinking (here I draw on my experience in designing and implementing an undergraduate course on Mathematical Proof and Proving (MPP), on my current work with Eric Knuth and Amy Ellis on the roles of examples in learning to prove, and my previous work with Uri Leron on generic proving, and with Orly Buchbinder on the roles of examples in determining the validity of mathematical statements). In terms of teaching, I try to unpack pedagogical considerations that teachers encounter when constructing or selecting instructional examples (this work I have done with Iris Zodik), and try to characterize this kind of knowledge for teaching mathematics that appears to be crafted through experience.
12 June 2014 room 915 - pls note change of room
Dave Pratt and Melissa Rodd
'Thinking, fast and slow' - a discussion of some of the ideas from Daniel Kahneman's book and implications for mathematics education.
link: pdf of Daniel Kahneman (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4299-6935-2.
5 June 2014 room 915
Maths education team meeting
Staffing for next acdemic year
29 May 2014 room 728
Leo Rogers, Oxford University
Historical Epistemology: what we learn about ‘learning’ from the History of Mathematics
Historical Epistemology investigates the resources and conditions pertaining in cultures that give rise to particular ways in which ideas have been formed in the past, and what we may gather from our interpretations that provide information that enables us to think differently about some of our current scientific assumptions. The seminar will offer some contexts and activities from the past that have been identified as ‘mathematical’, and discuss their relevance for the modern classroom. I would like to begin with some examples of contexts and objects to think about before getting on to more ‘philosophical’ arguments about perception, visualisation, analogy and certainty of knowledge. Here are the powerpoint slides.
22 May 2014 room 736 - pls note change of room
Geoff Kent
Analytical Approaches to the Social: Networking Cognitive and Critical theories to interpret data from the REALMS (Raising Expectations and Achievement Levels for all Mathematics Students) research project
Debate about the interplay between social and individual aspects of mathematics teaching and learning remains at the cutting edge of theoretical understanding of mathematics education research. In trying to make sense of the insights of these divergent perspectives I ask: How is it that social reality exists? What are the merits and limitations of considering the students in our classrooms as only collections of individual minds, in contrast with perspectives that posit the primacy of the social in determining the identity of mathematics learners? Can each be accorded its relative legitimacy in a rigorous and rational manner? Recent developments in analytical social theory may have the potential to address this issue productively. This paper covers the conflict between social-constructivist and socio-cultural perspectives in the literature and the critical role of inter-subjectivity in communicating mathematics through interaction. The paper concludes by drawing on Searle‟s notion of collective intentionality to address the networking and complementary use of theories based in cognitive science and critical theory and the interplay of the individual and social in school mathematics.
15 May 2014 room 903 - pls note change of room
Cathy Smith & Candia Morgan
The comparative curriculum project.
We are going to talk informally about the NCEE curriculum project for which we have just finished the first phase. The project is a review of curriculum documents in 11 "high-performing jurisdictions" and we have looked at the secondary mathematics as part of this ( with c. 1 day per country). It is necessarily descriptive rather than analytic but it has been interesting both in its outcomes and in its methods. The 11 jurisdictions are Japan, China Shanghai and Hong Kong, Florida, Massachusetts, Australia New South Wales and Queensland, Singapore, Finland, Canada Alberta and Ontario.
and
Anneli Dyrvold, Erasmus exchange academic visitor from Umea University, Sweden
Aspects of multisemiotics in PISA mathematics and the Swedish national tests in mathematics
Abstract: I will present a study aiming at analysing if there are any relations between mulitsemiotic features of mathematics tasks and solution frequency or demand of reading ability of the tasks. By multisemiotic features I mean how natural language, mathematical notation and different types of images is used in the task text and if there is a need to read information from several sources together to interpret the task correctly.
8 May 2014 room 803
Steve Lerman, Loughborough University, with Michal Ayalon
On: functions in secondary school mathematics This talk, based on our on-going study, examines expressions of covariational reasoning by 11 to 18 year old English students responding to a survey consisting of function tasks developed in collaboration with their teachers. It is part of a larger project which compares UK and Israeli students, who learn formally about functions at different ages. In this study, the survey was given to 10 students from each of UK years 7–13, a total of 70 students. An iterative and comparative analysis process identified capabilities as well as difficulties of students and suggested conjectures concerning links between the affordances of the tasks and the curriculum, and students' responses. The talk focuses on five of the tasks and highlights the importance of connections between informal, schooled and formal aspects of covariation in adolescent learning.1
May 2014 room 803
Gregor Lomas, Faculty of Education, University of Auckland
Numeracy in New Zealand: Looking back, what's left and possible legacies
An exploration of the NZ Numeracy Development Projects (NDP) for 5 year olds to 14/15 year olds in terms of:
- goals; development and evolution; the three main underpinning features; associated pedagogy and classroom practice(s) – teaching and assessment, and resources.
- the extent to which NDP achievements in primary and secondary schools did and did not meet NDP goals?
- how sustainable are the NDP achievements?
- what sort of things are needed to sustain and/or further improve on them?
- unintended consequences such as changes in teacher education mathematics education programmes and flow on effects, and the funding and promotion of research based on teacher education departments at universities around the country.
24th April 2014
Kate Mackrell
Meaning in mathematics education: social construction or initiation into the space of reasons?
Abstract: In the mathematics education literature, learners' encounters with meaning are almost always described in terms of "social construction". I will unpick what this meant in the context in which it arose and suggest ways in which this impacts current theory and practice. I will then consider the potential for reframing mathematics education in terms of initiation into the space of reasons.
10 April 2014 room 901
Nicola Bretscher
Developing a measure of mathematical knowledge for teaching circle theorems using technology
This seminar presents the circle theorem case list as a potential tool for measuring mathematical knowledge for teaching circle theorems using technology,
as part of a broader research study aiming to develop a deeper understanding of how and why mathematics teachers use technology in their classroom practice. The development of a measure of mathematical knowledge for teaching circle theorems using technology necessarily exists in a dialectic relationship with the conceptualisation of that knowledge. Thus the circle theorem case list was developed in tandem with a conceptualisation of mathematical knowledge for teaching circle theorems using technology, based on a qualitative analysis of data from interviews with four case study teachers structured around a
specially-designed GeoGebra file. The complexity of this conceptualisation is justified post-hoc by the analysis of interview data using the Knowledge
Quartet. In addition, an indication is provided of how this conceptualisation might be operationalised as a test item. Please do have a go at exploring
this geogebra file on circle theorems, especially diagram 1 – the seminar will make much more sense if you have.
3 April 2014
Discussion of paper proposed by Eirini Geraniou: link to paper Gurtner, J. (1992). Between Logo and Mathematics: A Road of Tunnels and Bridges. In Hoyles, C. and Noss, R. (eds.), Learning Mathematics and Logo, The MIT press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp.247-268.
20 March 2014 room 915
Jeff Evans, Middlesex University
Reading the PIAAC Results: what to look out for, and what you may find
I want to consider what the PIAAC results might be able to tell us, and how they might be useful to mathematics education and adults’ mathematics education / numeracy researchers. I will begin by sketching a well-established set of criteria for validity in non-experimental research (Evans, 1983, based on Campbell & Stanley’s work, as elaborated by many others). I will then apply these to the reading of international surveys like PISA and PIAAC (Project for International Assessment of Adult Competencies, aka Survey of Adult Skills), and to the recent results from the latter, which appeared in October 2013. Tsatsaroni, A.& Evans, J. (2013), 'Adult Numeracy and the Totally Pedagogies Society: PIAAC and other international surveys in the context of global educational policy', in Educational Studies in Mathematics, Special Issue on Social Theory in Mathematics Education (in press).
13 March 2014 room 803 Anne Watson, Oxford University
Beyond Fragments.
Anne Watson will talk about her experience going back into school to teach mathematics to a class of year 7 students after 19 years away, and how the
Pupil Premium made this extremely difficult – who won and who lost out?
6 March 2014 room 803
Kicki Skog, Erasmus exchange academic visitor from Stockholm
Immigrant Primary Mathematics Teacher Students’ Subject Positioning
In my work as teacher educator I have met many students from different cultures. They are not to be seen as a homogenous group, however there are questions they raise that only relate to their background. The issue of having another mother tongue is one of the most prevalent factors that affect them during teacher education. My PhD project focuses on becoming mathematics teachers’ subject positionings in discourses available in the educational contexts. I take a socio-political theoretical approach in order to understand how power-relations may affect the students’ discursive positionings. What I want to foreground in this presentation is implications of immigrant students’ subject positionings in discourses of language and mathematics. I have found that there is a need to take into account how discourses of language and mathematics work within the educational programme. I would like to invite you to discuss how to meet becoming mathematics teachers’ different needs without omitting the core of mathematics education.
27 February 2014 room 803
Research students' presentations:
Carla Finesilver Key representation types for students struggling with multiplicative thinking.
The move from understanding and working with additive structures to multiplicative structures requires a significant change in thinking. This paper explores the visuospatial representations of multiplicative structures created during individual numeracy tuition by a group of pupils working on simple multiplication-and division-based tasks. The pupils were all in KS3 or KS4 in mainstream secondary schools, where they were considered very low-attaining (all performing at NC Level 3 or below on most recent assessment). They had demonstrated a secure conceptual understanding of addition and subtraction, but not multiplication or division, and made considerable use of counting-based strategies to deal with arithmetical tasks of all kinds. Four interlinked representation types are discussed: unit containers, unit arrays, array-container blends, and number containers. These are used to investigate the roles of visuospatial representation in the pupils’ developing multiplicative thinking, and the relationship between representational and arithmetical strategies in natural number division tasks.
Norul Huda An investigation of mathematics student teachers’recontextualisation of messages about classroom control during the teaching practicum in the Malaysian context
It is observed that all six mathematics student teachers who participated in my study about student teachers’ recontextualisation (Bernstein, 1990) faced many obstacles regarding handling students’misbehaviour in the classroom. However, the student teachers are not left alone in facing this difficulty where mentors, supervisors and even University courses support student teachers by conveying messages about classroom control to them. My study focuses on deriving the similarities and differences of messages from the University and the School based on Bernstein’s discussion of possible resistance between the Field of Recontextualisation and the Field of Reproduction. The student teachers’ recontextualisation of these various messages is then studied. In my presentation, I will discuss various messages about classroom control conveyed to student teachers, the ways in which student teachers recontextualise the messages, and possible implications for mathematics student teachers development during the practicum.
Bernstein, B. (1990). The structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. Volume IV: Class, Codes and Control. (Vol. 4). London: Routledge.
19th February 2014, room 901
Nathalie Sinclair & David Pimm, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Expanding finger gnosis with TouchCounts.
How might multi-touchscreen environments change what it means to "know your fingers", a knowing that cognitive scientists have identified as a key
pre-requisite to the development of number sense. The session will include practical work with the TouchCounts software, please contact Nathalie Sinclair if you'd like a trial version of the software for your iPad.
13 February 2014 room 803
Mathematics education team meeting. Sharing information about projects: what are you working on or planning beyond your core teaching? The aim is to think about developing as a team and current and future priorities.
30 January 2014 room 803
Discussion of Esther Levenson's paper 'Tasks that may occasion mathematical creativity: teachers' choices' J Math Teacher Educ (2013) 16:269–291; the case studies include both primary and secondary teachers.
23 January 2014 room 911; N.B. This meeting will be from 1pm-2pm.
Cathy Smith and colleagues
Workshop on supervising Masters dissertations and reports.
16 January 2014 room 803
Pete Wright
Initial findings from EdD research project 'Teaching maths for social justice: translating theory into classroom practice' link to BCME 2014 draft paper.
9 January 2014 room 908
Doctoral School application procedures:
how to make it easier for prospective students and supervisors in maths education. Discussion. And any other business.
12 December 2013 in 908
Bring a starter! - mathematical and edible (mince pies too!)
Informal sharing of tasks 'that have worked for us' (a la ATM and from the Rowland and Zazkis paper that was discussed on 21 Nov 2013).
5 December 2013 in 803
Dave Pratt and Jan Derry
Towards an inferentialist-informed mathematics curriculum for adults working at Level 2.
Dave will present progress on developing a MOOC for adults who have not (yet) obtained GCSE mathematics and who need a fresh approach to the study of mathematics at that level. The design of the MOOC will be to some extent influenced by constructionist and inferentialist principles. Jan will explain inferentialism and its implications for education more widely.
28 November 2013 in 803
Elena Kokkoli: PhD research report: Secondary Mathematics Teachers during Educational Change, A case study in the Cypriot Educational Context.
&
Rebecca Nelson:How newly appointed subject leaders in mathematics in comprehensive secondary schools in England experience their first year in post.
Abstract. My research focus is on how newly appointed subject leaders in mathematics in comprehensive secondary schools in England experience their first year in post. My intention is to provide a narrative account of the challenges and successes of taking up this role, from the perspective of the subject leader. Through case studies of X subject leaders who take up a new post in September 2014, I aim, with the help of my subjects, to provide an interpretation which will discuss the wider policy context in which mathematics is taught, the institutional structures and relationships within which the role is played out and the significance of the biographical histories of the subject leaders. I hope that my study will be of help to current and future subject leaders, to their line managers in schools and to external organisations that prepare or support new subject leaders in providing insights and food for further discussion and reflection.
21 November 2013 in 803
Discussion of Tim Rowland & Rina Zazkis (2013) Contingency in the Mathematics Classroom:
Opportunities Taken and Opportunities Missed, Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 13:2, 137-153
14 November 2013 in 915
Prof. Götz Krummheuer - Goethe University Frankfurt am Main
CHANGING MATHEMATICAL DOMAINS IN SITUATIONS OF PLAY AND EXPLORATION – A GENUINE MATHEMATICAL ACTIVITY OF CHILDREN AT PRESCHOOL AND KINDERGARTEN AGE?
My presentation deals with the shifts between mathematical domains when preschool and/or kindergarten children are cooperatively interacting in mathematical play and exploration situations. This topic is one research interest in the general endeavor of developing a theory of mathematical thinking in the early years. With regard to the development of mathematical thinking, the hypothesis is stated that this switching between mathematical domains is to be taken as a positive developmental path. In view of this research, the increasing orientation in the discourse in education towards the acquisition of pre-defined domain specific competences is seen critically.
This website was set up 10 November 2013. All meetings after this date are posted on this site.